New apps and limitless online options open up music for all

Thomas Bruch of the Journal Star

Saturday

Feb 10, 2018 at 5:54 PMFeb 10, 2018 at 6:41 PM

BARTONVILLE — In the lower level of their home in Bartonville, 15-year-old Caleb Duhon lassos the strap of his electric guitar around his shoulder and faces his amp. In the room next to him, his 13-year-old brother Isaac Duhon picks up his sticks and sits down at his electronic drum set.

But before their respective jamming sessions begin, they both took one extra step — Caleb flipped off the cover of an iPad and booted up the Riffstation app, while Isaac positioned his iPhone on top of the soundboard to the right of this drum kit and started a multi-angle video of a drummer.

The Duhon brothers' set-up depicts a new form of music literacy, one that integrates the technology that has become part of everyday life into the process of learning a musical instrument. The easy access to thousands of online instruction videos, web-based music sheets and smartphone apps have been an asset to aspiring musicians, who are like the Duhons in that they are self-taught and have received minimal one-on-one instruction from teachers — whether it's piano, guitar or making beats for a hip hop song.

Music instructors in the Peoria area have tried to acclimate to the infusion of technology by embracing some of it as supplements in their own classes. Technological advancements are not going anywhere, said Jason Terry, an assistant professor of music at Bradley University, and it's only sensible for an instructor to adopt teaching methods that incorporate that technology to benefit their pupils.

But as is the case with so many other facets of modern day life's intertwining with new-age devices, there have been doubts raised about the rise of technology in relation to learning an instrument. Some instructors have seen the "instant gratification" culture of the smartphone era negatively affecting prospective students, while others have observed the self-teaching method as a cultivation of bad habits.

And one local award-winning guitar teacher has even blamed the pervasiveness of phone use for a drop in participation.

"It's a little bit of a downward trend for guitar," said Andy Hatfield, winner of national flat-pick guitar and mandolin playing awards. "It's an upward trend for kids on their phones."

Resonating devices

The numbers are overwhelming. According to a 2015 study by the Pew Research Center, 90 percent of parents reported their children, ages 6 to 17, watched television or videos on their devices on a typical day, and 79 percent reported their children playing games on devices during a typical day.

Smartphones and tablets are the language most kids speak these days. Younger kids respond to the use of a flash card system on a device, Terry observed, more so than the physical cards. And showing a quick YouTube clip might pique a child's interest far more quickly than any other technique.

That's what drew Rosa Chang to find ways to reach her students via those channels. Chang is the president of the Peoria Area Music Teacher's Association and runs a piano studio out of her North Peoria home with her husband, Justin Kothenbeutel.

A mobile tool that Chang, Kothenbeutel and many others have implemented is called Practicia, a cloud-based technology that keeps music teachers, students and parents connected during the days between classes. Practicia allows teachers to record multimedia instructions for students and for students to upload recordings of their practice sessions for a teacher's review.

If a student is hung up on a certain aspect of their lesson, they can reach out to their instructor via Practicia to get back on track. Conversely, teachers can earmark a certain stretch of the uploaded recording to drop in a piece of advice. Even though class time is vital, that will be only 30 minutes or an hour compared to the vast majority of practicing that will occur at home.

"The ability to interact with these apps allows them to feel a bit more connected with the teacher rather than waiting for next week's bad news when they come to class," Kothenbeutel said.

When Caleb Duhon sets his sights on learning a new song at home, he will consult the Riffstation app. Caleb uploads an audio file of the song he wants to learn, and Riffstation scans the file and spits out the chords for guitar, ukulele or piano in sync with the music.

The chords pop up with the alphabetical designation — "A" or "D" — along with a visual of the strings involved with that chord. In essence, it's like a practical version of Guitar Hero. Caleb has found it to be an invaluable resource, though he's discovered that it's not infallible.

"It's not all the way accurate, to be honest, but I can hear what I need to change," Caleb said, adding that watching on YouTube helps fill in the blanks.

Even high school bands have begun using a battery of apps and digital tools to upgrade their playing regiment. At Washington Community High School, marching band director Jim Tallman said band members consult apps for tuning, sight reading and music application theory.

"A lot of schools are using all or some of these apps," Tallman said.

In his 25th year as the band director, it's not a development he ever anticipated, but it's one he's grateful to see. When you're overseeing a marching band with hundreds of members, it helps when they can reference YouTube for minor questions rather than flood their director with queries.

Going to the next level

While digital tools and online videos touting song mastery in "two hours or less" may serve aspiring youths well, Terry has seen the back-end of this type of learning as a music professor on a college campus with a focus on piano.

Terry has weighed both sides of the self-instruction debate and has seen merit in it. In fact, he initially taught himself by ear and didn't take formal lessons until college.

But for all of the quality recordings on YouTube and elsewhere, he said there are an equal amount of terrible recordings that are deceiving people into hearing something incorrect.

"It could be wrong notes, it could be wrong articulation, wrong fingering," Terry said. "It's caused the teachers to have to help the students understand what is a good sound for Beethoven."

The other issue he has found is with the "rote" method of learning, which entails learning by sight or by ear alone. The cameras on these recordings are focused on the demonstrator's hands, causing the person watching to not pay attention to the actual music. Terry said that learning by rote harms the musician in reading music and puts them at a disadvantage when they are expected to know note recognition.

Even the casual effects of technology — being able to pull up any information with a few taps — has warped prospective musicians into thinking that they can easily achieve a mastery of the instrument. Some are driven enough to pull it off, including an international student he began teaching in private instruction that had learned everything to that point from YouTube. But most of the time it leaves students frustrated when they encounter formal lessons and sheet music.

It presents a conundrum for the self-taught learner. Caleb Duhon has taught himself how to play bass, electric and acoustic guitar as well as some piano. He plays in the worship band for the services at the Pentecostals of Peoria church with people that have played together for more than a decade. All by the age of 15.

He has ambitions to play on bigger stages and learn more about the craft of guitar playing, and he readily admits he's always going to be learning something new and that it won't be easy. Perhaps more traditional lessons are in his future, either down the road or in higher learning at a place such as the Indiana Bible college, which is renowned for its music program.

Jennifer Duhon said that she would gladly pay for lessons if it was needed for her sons, but she has been able to observe her sons diligently taking it upon themselves to learn and develop a sturdy work ethic in the process.

"It pours over into other areas," Jennifer Duhon said. "If you're disciplined in one part of life, you're disciplined in other areas."

More music for more people

Despite his hesitations about certain aspects of the technological boom, Terry still believes it's a good idea to embrace whatever tools are useful and that encourage people to learn music, specifically with kids 12 years old and younger.

At least locally, it doesn't appear to be stifling music education. Don Middleton, owner of Don's Musicland, said that participation is lower than the boom years of the 1980s but has remained steady in recent decades. And Tallman reported the most robust band numbers at Washington in his 25 years with 225 members this past fall. He credited the exponential growth of support for the arts by each new administration in his time there.

Technology doesn't even pose the predominant threat to declining music participation, Chang said. Year-round travel sports and economic factors, such as the round Caterpillar layoffs from a few years back, are far more likely to affect parents budgeting in music lessons for their child. The Caterpillar layoffs were the only real dip in students she's seen in her time in Peoria.

Chang and Kothenbeutel champion any method that makes learning an instrument more accessible. Raised by a single mother in the Peoria area, Kothenbeutel could only learn so much from her before he needed one-on-one instruction — something that wasn't in the budget for the family. He was only able to continue his music lessons because of an outside benefactor who read about his need in a newspaper story.

Teaching piano might be his job, but the idea of a child getting inspired enough from YouTube videos to take on the challenge of becoming a musician is a heartening one to him.

"The more people that play music, the better," Kothenbeutel said.

Thomas Bruch can be reached at 686-3262 or tbruch@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @ThomasBruch.

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